Illinois Supreme Court clears way for capital plan

(Crain's) — The Illinois Supreme Court has cleared the way for the taxes needed to support Gov. Pat Quinn's $31-billion capital spending plan.

In a decision announced first thing Monday morning, the court held that the alcohol, vehicle and other taxes imposed to support the spending were proper and that the plan can proceed.

Plaintiffs including liquor mogul Rocky Wirtz had contended that the law as written violated a clause limiting legislation to one subject. But the high-court ruling held that the clause should be construed "liberally."

An Illinois Appellate Court panel had agreed with Mr. Wirtz, asserting that the wide variety of taxes and other levies imposed were not sufficiently related to pass constitutional muster.

That decision send much of the state's political establishment into shock, because it took years to assemble a coalition of sufficient votes to approve the taxes, including one on legalized video poker.

But in its decision, the Supreme Court strongly disagreed.

The taxes all of a "natural and logical connection" to one subject: capital spending, the court opinion states. "The public acts in the instant case are reasonably related to one another .

In fact, the justices held, "The subject may be as broad as the legislature chooses."

That would seem to allow lawmakers to do pretty much whatever they want, assuming they claim it all to be dealing with a "single subject."

The state had continued to spend on the capital program in anticipation that the Supreme Court would uphold the taxes.